Guild Wars 2

Sovta.4719:

eisberg.2379:

Sovta.4719:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

That very tiny minority was like 50% and more of playerbase that left this game for good and they would give more money in long terms. Casual will just go to another casual game.

Yet the MMO industry keeps on focusing on casual gaming, because that is where the money is. And if you are going to give percentages, at least have something to back up that percentage.

Something to back up? Like so many guilds dying, most players in friend list offline for months, insta join in wvw while there was min 1h queue on every border 4-5 months ago? Spvp and biggest tournament so far with 4k views?

ah, so only from your personal experience. That doesn’t equate to 50%. My personal experience, the experience of co-workers, and college class mates have seen only increases in their guilds, that range from 50-1100 players each, friends list with the vast majority still playing. So as you can see personal experience is going to differ and cannot be used for made up statistics.

Also, for all we know the PvE in this game is could be far more popular then PvP and that perhaps the majority just don’t care about PvP all that much.

You can speculate all you want, doesn’t make it right. Cause if I do the same thing as you, then I would say the opposite of you and say that this game has increased by 50%.

Sovta.4719:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

That very tiny minority was like 50% and more of playerbase that left this game for good and they would give more money in long terms. Casual will just go to another casual game.

Oh, and here i thought that majority of the leavers were either content locust (that would have left anyway), or those that quit over ascended gear debacle.
And it’s the casuals that generate the income. Because, it’s the casuals that usually have the money in the first place (it’s harder to devote lot of time to the game if you have a job, after all). Especially since, in gw2, hardcores , instead of buying gems for cash, could (and would) just farm the gold and exchange for gems (which, again, are supplied by casuals).

lorazcyk.8927:

But real challenging content? I think people would like it, so long as they are introduced to the challenging concepts slowly through the game, so they’re well prepared for harder content.

Yeah, some people would. Most people, however, run those types of content not because they want to challenge themselves, but simply to farm. It’s true in GW2, and it was equally true in GW1.
Fun fact: when in GW1 people started to complain that DoA was too hard, the players that were running it already protested. The main stated reason for protesting was very telling. There were almost no mentions of carebears or challenges o wanting it easy or anything like that – the real problem was elsewhere. If content became easier, more people would be able to run it succesfully, and the drops those farmers got from the content would be devalued. Most people asking for hard content do not want challenge – they want exclusivity. Those that truly want a challenge usually gravitate towards PvP playstyles anyway.

Now, i don’t accuse you of belonging to such a group. I honestly believe hat you really want a challenging content for the challenge’s sake. You have to realize, however, that you are a member of a very tiny minority. Most of the players in this game (i most MMO’s, but here especially) are casual, and content you consider easy is for them already challenging enough.

lorazcyk.8927:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

I’m sorry?
See attachment. And this is a monday night!

That’s not a lot of people when you consider that that’s all the servers. You may think that’s a lot of groups but it’s seriously downsized from how many people used to run it.

lorazcyk.8927:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

I’m sorry?
See attachment. And this is a monday night!

But in all seriousness, the amount of people shouting for AC party declined drastically after the change.

Right now people run the easiest and shortest explorable path(s), right? Meaning different dungeons and different paths provide different difficulty and length already. The only thing that needs to be done is to evaluate the paths properly and adjust the reward accordingly.

In Other words: The harder the path, the better the loot. Wouldn’t be too much effort for the devs while encouraging players to run more than just CoF p1.

lorazcyk.8927:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

Don’t lump us all together.
I played Gw1 for 7 years because it was challenging. If it was only Prophecies with no expansions, I would have still played it for years. Prophecies had no end game (unless you count PvP)
Though it had more expansions, I still went back and re-played Prophecies many times, played it more than other expansions.

Challenging content can be friendly to casuals. I was a casual for 2-3 years in Gw1.
Casual as in “limited time to play”, not “bad player”.
Definitely wasn’t that bad a player, I started with a domination mesmer in PvE, right from the start I made a mesmer build like you’d see in a top rated GvG (PvP) match. And it was my first online RPG!

See my signature, “Hard mode for everyone”.

Because if there was challenging content most people would complain and it would be nerfed anyway

Yeah, if by “challenging” you mean it takes 3 hours to do because monsters have 1000,000,000 HP and hit for 19,000 damage.
But real challenging content? I think people would like it, so long as they are introduced to the challenging concepts slowly through the game, so they’re well prepared for harder content.

I completely concur. Also, most people have a negative outlook on casuals. We are NOT all “derp, give me infant mode now!”.

I agree that maybe having different paths for one dungeon might not be the best thing going for GW2 at the moment. The idea was cool seeing as you essentially have multiple dungeons in one but as stated by others most of the alternate paths are skipped due to rewards being the same by running the “easier” paths. Maybe ANet could consolidate all of the paths into one mega dungeon and increase/modify rewards?

Lucard.4235:

Casual, friendly, stale and soon…i fear what comes next for Guild Wars 2 and all the players who still put hope within this game.

Phrased as if casual and friendly are dirty words. Way to insult 80% of the entire gaming population.

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?

Aray, fotm30+, HotW, CoE

Why aren’t there any challenging jumping puzzles?

Obsidian sanctum, clock tower, skipping stones

Why aren’t there any challenging events?

Temple events, guild bounty tier 3

It’s not that this content isn’t challenging … in fact, a lot of the content takes a while to master, because they require intelligence (a rare good may I add, only 50% of the population has an IQ higher than 100). However, once you beat it, you’ve mastered it.

And that’s the whole clue … It isn’t artificially hard because of gear gating behind timesink raids, but rather because you’ll have to learn to beat content. But mastering content is a one time thing, and that’s what you’re complaining about. That’s a brilliant design.

As a filthy casual I have to laugh at these threads because nowhere in the post level 80 process is this game at all easy. Mobs keep getting updated to make them non soloable, there’s a code in the system and the whole game is designed to absolutely be partied with someone at all times to get anything from mobs, the dungeons are so difficult and so few are rewarding that people generally ignore all of them save 1 path all the time, and don’t try to actually see the story mode because that will waste people’s time. Not to mention the need for certain classes due to the game challenge level of the dungeons so that people can speed run thru them to get resources since those resources are nowhere else to be found.

If this game isn’t difficult for you then do what you have told us legit farmers for a very long time now when we’ve complained about there not being enough casual activities in the game, leave. That’s what I’ve heard every time any of us have actually talked about their development.

Casuals are not bad players. And I have to laugh that people actually think this is a casual game, it’s not it turned from that in November and people are getting bored.

tigirius.9014:

Casuals are not bad players.

Generally speaking, I rarely (if ever) agree with tigirius, however, I have to agree with the above quoted line.

Beyond that, while I feel that the game is casual friendly, it is not optimized just for casual players. The game supports many play styles from the couple times a month player to the hard-core everyday grinder. But that’s just my opinion.

tigirius.9014:

As a filthy casual I have to laugh at these threads because nowhere in the post level 80 process is this game at all easy. Mobs keep getting updated to make them non soloable, there’s a code in the system and the whole game is designed to absolutely be partied with someone at all times to get anything from mobs, the dungeons are so difficult and so few are rewarding that people generally ignore all of them save 1 path all the time, and don’t try to actually see the story mode because that will waste people’s time. Not to mention the need for certain classes due to the game challenge level of the dungeons so that people can speed run thru them to get resources since those resources are nowhere else to be found.

The game is easy. It really is. All mobs are soloable, even those in Southsun which are just a teensy bit harder. But still no challenge.
Also dungeons are not difficult. People don’t run CoF p1 just because it’s easy, they run it because it is the fastest path in the game. The other dungeons + paths are also easy, but they take longer simply by design. And since the rewards for dungeons are pretty much the same, people simply run the fastest path available. Really. Why run Arah which takes 1-2h because its long (not difficult), when you can run CoF p1 in 6 minutes, for the freaking same reward? It’s totally out of balance right now.

Oh and there is no need for certain classes because of difficulty. There is a need for certain classes if you want to achieve something special, like a speedrun. But again, that’s got nothing to do with difficulty.

I ran FotM 26 with 0 agony resistance yesterday, it was easy. Like the rest of the game. The most challenge I get is from sPvP, since players are unpredictable. And even if some content might be difficult in the beginning, it quickly transcends to being easy the more you play it. Because it is always the same. But then again, most content was easy to begin with.

X The Manimal.5293:

I agree that maybe having different paths for one dungeon might not be the best thing going for GW2 at the moment. The idea was cool seeing as you essentially have multiple dungeons in one but as stated by others most of the alternate paths are skipped due to rewards being the same by running the “easier” paths. Maybe ANet could consolidate all of the paths into one mega dungeon and increase/modify rewards?

This. They should enable all paths to be able to be completed without zoning out, and change the reward system so that the more events that the party completes, the more cash, tokens and better loot you get at the end of each path.

eg: Each event is worth X cash and Y tokens, collected from a chest at the end of the path. Complete one full path and get a guaranteed rare. Two paths, two rares. All three paths, and maybe two rares and an exotic (or just three rares with a better chance at exotics, if they so choose).

Encourage people to run all paths, and complete everything rather than just skipping past everything unnecessary for completion, and we might see more people running things other than CoF 1.

I will say the same thing that I said when the game came out.

The profession-specific armors, the double p?rofession system, the skill building, and the elite skill hunting kept Guild Wars 1 replayable, offering something different for every class, every time; and the lack of auction house, the Outpost/City system, and Alliance Battles glued the community together.

The lack of these things killed people’s enthusiasm for Guild Wars 2.

We fans knew why the first game was good. We told them. To invoke the meme, “They only had one job.”

RoterFuchs.9216:

The most challenge I get is from sPvP, since players are unpredictable.

Until they make mobs unpredictable, they will never be challenging for someone who has mastered the content.

Lucard.4235:

So I wounder if I’m the only one or in the minority to see that what is needed is quit simply a little increase in the difficulty to allow player to have goals which aren’t achieved the same day they set them, and for the love of god Legendaries are in no way shape or form a goal to be set a month after you start the game which mind you, is currently happening.

My solemn answer to this is that you are definitely not the only one, but definitely are in the minority.

I don’t think anyone sees making Guild Wars 2 “more hardcore” as the answer to all its ills except hardcore players themselves, which in turn is bad news for those hardcore players.

However, personally I would certainly like to see more challenge available. Ideally I would like to see both new challenging content and existing content optionally accessible in more challenging ways.

lorazcyk.8927:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

Don’t lump us all together.
I played Gw1 for 7 years because it was challenging. If it was only Prophecies with no expansions, I would have still played it for years. Prophecies had no end game (unless you count PvP)
Though it had more expansions, I still went back and re-played Prophecies many times, played it more than other expansions.

Challenging content can be friendly to casuals. I was a casual for 2-3 years in Gw1.
Casual as in “limited time to play”, not “bad player”.
Definitely wasn’t that bad a player, I started with a domination mesmer in PvE, right from the start I made a mesmer build like you’d see in a top rated GvG (PvP) match. And it was my first online RPG!

See my signature, “Hard mode for everyone”.

Because if there was challenging content most people would complain and it would be nerfed anyway

Yeah, if by “challenging” you mean it takes 3 hours to do because monsters have 1000,000,000 HP and hit for 19,000 damage.
But real challenging content? I think people would like it, so long as they are introduced to the challenging concepts slowly through the game, so they’re well prepared for harder content.

Biggest issue I think they would have would be their reward system, most people me included when it comes to rewards do what makes sense. Running CoF p1 as simple as it is offers a greater reward then a Dungeon like Arah. That all based on time not content. CoF p1 6-10min per run, Arah 1-2 hrs.. Once Anet decides to make the rewards equal the time you might see more people in other dungeons.. When I run a FoTM I know that has much more RNG in it but that hurts to doing a 30 and getting 1 total rare.. but we get a chance at a skin, relics and a pristine relic. Hope this makes sense

Oh wow, look everyone, a unique post complaining about FREE content. But wait. What’s that? It’s not unique? Oh NO!!!

Look OP: you are getting multiple updates a month that include new content and on-going bug fixes…for free.

If you don’t like it, kindly exit this tab and come back at a later date, since it’s free and no one is forcing you to play.

Eh, I dunno.

He raises a legitimate complaint for plenty of players (“there isn’t enough to challenge me”), it’s just the veering off into speculation about this being bad for the game’s level of success that is a bit of a perspective issue.

The casual/hardcore dichotomy is a false dichotomy in modern gaming, especially in the MMO. There is no way for a major title to survive without appealing to casual players. This actually isn’t so much a problem as a feature of the gaming landscape.

The solution is open world PvE which takes casuals into consideration and dungeons with scaling difficulty. Ideally dungeons would have, perhaps, three difficulty modes that would appeal to a broad range of players both in terms of desire and skill. It’s relatively easy to meet the needs of both groups and there is no inherent need for division amongst the player base here.

Yeah, if I was a teenager with unlimited free time again, nothing in the game would be challenging to me either probably because I would have memorized it all.

I guess what I’m saying is go outside and ride your bike for more hours than you play video games each day, then you won’t have time to memorize everything.

Lucard.4235:

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?

If they do, can you imagine the chaos on the forum?

For example, have you tried the new solo-instance? Isn’t it easy enough?
Yet, here are the overview of mass complains on the other forum:

“Using item in defeating boss does not match my play style, I rather use my 1337 skills”.
“Boss is too hard for me”.
“Canach is bugged, his mine does not kill him”.
“I can’t kite Canach”.
“I can’t damage Canach with my attack”.
“Too much stuns / knockdown from Canach”.

Best of all:
“I can’t reach the instance because there are too many mobs before the instance”.

So many people came to forum to complain about the difficulty in killing Canach because they can’t even figure out how to kill him with mines. (HINT: talk to NPCs and READ).

How can you introduce any more challenging content? Seriously… You will open a flood-gate on this forum.

If people really want a sightly more challenge content, perhaps they should try Arah first. On the other hand, unfortunately, although ArenaNet already nerfed it into oblivion, so many people still have difficulty with regular mobs and Lupi…

Could you imagine if Blizzard dropped in a jump puzzle such as the Mad Kings Tower? Subscribers would go nuclear. Heck, look at what happened with attunments? Earlier even if you tried to get into Naxx – the original requirement involved arcane crystals and a crazy attunement that maybe only 1% of the population even had… Then factor in the 4 hoursmen. Maybe .05% of the population pre easy mode ever saw

Today is the new world order whereas people want it now. No effort, no wait.

GW2 is still a good game. Not perfect. But don’t be ignorant and say there isn’t anything to do. There is plenty to do and some of it is difficult. Fractals was a good start and I’m sure it will be refined even though I dislike the agony design.

Tell me how many of the ‘80 things to do at 80" you have done. Then we’ll talk about this game being dead.

Please let us not forget that challenge and difficulty are two completely different things.
GW2 does need a more challenging PvE (to be precise, a more challenging AI), but its difficulty is fine for the most part.

Just to add to the topic: The challenge must be about COMPLEX boss patterns and not solely high amounts of HP, this tendency is boring people at lightspeed and although the game is in good state as of now this may not last much.

And the challenge is not limited to bosses, AC got nice reworks and the bosses are cool but p1 final boss is still bug-able at stairs and all the paths to the bosses are kittening full of trash mob not worth killing. Balance the path itself too.

Please, balance things but do it in a good way, stop Living Stories and fix the game until it gets the best it can be; seems like you fix some stuff just to distract people, but we are here and we see what you’re changing and what is a true rework.

Also, don’t deny reward system is bad, because it is, I have no clue how you’ll figure this out but you have to do something, the game isn’t just about “WOW I went through a dungeon and finished it successfully”… so what? This please casuals but the game is already crowded with casual-focused content, you are moving away any sort of hardcore gamer.

And yeah I had an idea of putting cosmetic/skin item progression, look for it in suggestions sub-forum as it probably got buried down there.

There is a different between challenging and grinding… this game is much more of the latter, but we grind to make our characters feel powerful… a progression trait that is absent in this game.

Crapgame.6519:

Could you imagine if Blizzard dropped in a jump puzzle such as the Mad Kings Tower?

I agree, infact the whole idea of a jump puzzles in an mmorpg… and especially in the Guild Wars franchise, given how non existed in the first game is mind boggling, It’s like someone putting in jump puzzles in a Call of Duty game……..

Today is the new world order whereas people want it now. No effort, no wait.

Yep, gamings playerbase in this genre has evolved and it was I’d say influenced by Blizzard’s doing, though it seems ANET is not really taking the note of the successes of what has worked well and what hasn’t based on the experiences of other franchises, in some ways it feels like they’re living in the past as opposed to using that valuable information to forward plan their moves… examples such as the dungeon systems, the token systems… the upgrade systems.. even the crafting… if you’re a launch GW2 player and you sit down and really think about it, it is way more complex than it needed to be and should be simplified.

GW2 is still a good game. Not perfect. But don’t be ignorant and say there isn’t anything to do. There is plenty to do and some of it is difficult. Fractals was a good start and I’m sure it will be refined even though I dislike the agony design.

I think it’s average, it’s neither good nor bad… it needs more polishing…. much more.

dronzer.8392:

I think it’s average, it’s neither good nor bad… it needs more polishing…. much more.

9 months since retail launch give or take? I’d say you are probably not too far off mark. How much polish though is hard to say. I think any game of this type, especially one that has evolving content, will always need polishing. Not to belittle it though.

I myself would probably never go back to a subscription fee based game. I am also aware that I don’t think Arena Net has a whole could sustain evolving content with a reasonable, and good, development team. So something has to give. NCSoft has to pump in money or they have to offer something for people to buy in order to get some form of return. Just what the balance is I don’t know.

Having said that, I still login and truck along. There are things to do and much more that I don’t do for various reasons. Take fractals for example. I like the idea, they are actually neat (those that I’ve done); but I don’t have any desire to run anything else. Then there is sPvP. Been there, done that. Not a huge fan of being tied to a map. I didn’t like it in WoW or any other MMO, and I don’t like it now. Then there is WvW. DaOC style but the whole ranking thing was a knee jerk reaction which probably should have been better thought out (like make the rungs further apart and slower gained).

9 months though, not too bad all things considered. We have more content patched in and for free than most games offer via expansion packs. Doesn’t mean we can’t complain or want things changed, but I think it does put it in perspective.

Now…can I pay some gems to change race please…

Crapgame.6519:

dronzer.8392:

I think it’s average, it’s neither good nor bad… it needs more polishing…. much more.

9 months though, not too bad all things considered. We have more content patched in and for free than most games offer via expansion packs. Doesn’t mean we can’t complain or want things changed, but I think it does put it in perspective.

Why do people still say this? There are some FULL F2P that have bigger patches every month and things like custom arenas (not sure if advertised pre-launch but they were supposed to be here in October i think)and wvw culling fixes are things that needed to be here since day 1.
Putting 3-4 events that give you achievement (illusion of something great done, for god sake you fixed some signs along the road…..) and things like find this here, that there, talk to that NPC are not big updates. Besides from MF nothing really big was on these updates. (wvw ranks that meant 0 till Arrow carts)

Sovta.4719:

There are some FULL F2P that have bigger patches every month

Would you mind listing those F2P games that provided more content than we´ve had so far?

caiomacos.1694:

Sovta.4719:

There are some FULL F2P that have bigger patches every month

Would you mind listing those F2P games that provided more content than we´ve had so far?

Runes of Magic, Allods

I supposed people say it because of what it is compared to. In most cases outside LoL F2P games are failed subscription based. LoTR, AoC, Terra, Rift, and Swtor to name just a few. There are more, but I think you get the idea of why people say what they say. I guess it is subjective or just an opinion either way. Your view or mine which is perfectly fine.

Content is what it is. If it wasn’t there upon release then it was added. Be it seasonal, achievements, realm ranks, or anything else for that matter. Let us not split hairs.

Crapgame.6519:

I supposed people say it because of what it is compared to. In most cases outside LoL F2P games are failed subscription based. LoTR, AoC, Terra, Rift, and Swtor to name just a few. There are more, but I think you get the idea of why people say what they say. I guess it is subjective or just an opinion either way. Your view or mine which is perfectly fine.

Content is what it is. If it wasn’t there upon release then it was added. Be it seasonal, achievements, realm ranks, or anything else for that matter. Let us not split hairs.

So you get 2-3 achivements that tells you how awesome you are and think that is big update? Nice
You must love this new “dungeon”.

I find it a joke to call Canach’s Lair a “dungeon”, even an “instance”.

Sovta.4719:

caiomacos.1694:

Sovta.4719:

There are some FULL F2P that have bigger patches every month

Would you mind listing those F2P games that provided more content than we´ve had so far?

Runes of Magic, Allods

Oh you mean pay to win free to play games. Allods doesn’t have bigger patches every month. Just the idea that you say this shows me you haven’t played it that much. The game has like two servers and three guys playing it. I was one of them. Plenty of bugs that never got fixed too.

If you played Allods for any length of time you wouldn’t be comparing these two games. Runes of magic, at least when it came out, had the greediest cash shop I’ve ever seen. It has had some big updated, but monthly? Not for a very long time.

Anyway, the greedier the cash shop the more money you have to pay people to work for you. lol But yeah, those are some rose colored glasses you’re sporting.

Sovta.4719:

Crapgame.6519:

I supposed people say it because of what it is compared to. In most cases outside LoL F2P games are failed subscription based. LoTR, AoC, Terra, Rift, and Swtor to name just a few. There are more, but I think you get the idea of why people say what they say. I guess it is subjective or just an opinion either way. Your view or mine which is perfectly fine.

Content is what it is. If it wasn’t there upon release then it was added. Be it seasonal, achievements, realm ranks, or anything else for that matter. Let us not split hairs.

So you get 2-3 achivements that tells you how awesome you are and think that is big update? Nice
You must love this new “dungeon”.

It’s been two weeks since the last update. They’ve added a new meta event and a tiny instance, plus some other odds and ends, including bug fixes.

You must have expected the Taj Mahal. I think you need to have more realsitic expectations.

I didn’t like the instance, personally but it’s still a lot of updating for any game.

Sovta.4719:

Crapgame.6519:

I supposed people say it because of what it is compared to. In most cases outside LoL F2P games are failed subscription based. LoTR, AoC, Terra, Rift, and Swtor to name just a few. There are more, but I think you get the idea of why people say what they say. I guess it is subjective or just an opinion either way. Your view or mine which is perfectly fine.

Content is what it is. If it wasn’t there upon release then it was added. Be it seasonal, achievements, realm ranks, or anything else for that matter. Let us not split hairs.

So you get 2-3 achivements that tells you how awesome you are and think that is big update? Nice
You must love this new “dungeon”.

Wow, that doesn’t sound nice… /sadface

No, that isn’t what I consider a big update. However, there is probably several months worth if you use your favorite search engine to look. Yes, I agree they also include bug fixes and balance to all classes. There are almost patches every month once you look. Holloween, wintersday, lost shores, personal story, flame and frost, ascended gear, fractals, super adventure box, etc.

I mean it is all there. Are we discussing semantics here in regards to what constituted content?

GW2 is a lot easier than GW1. That was one of my greatest dislikes about the sequel. The game really holds your hand and doesn’t punish you for failing. The Risk and Challenge are gone so you feel like you get rewarded for nothing. It has nothing to do with being casual though. GW1 was play when you wanted too but it was hard as nails. A lot of the thinking and strategy is gone from the game. ArenaNet really trimmed down on the challenge of the game to make it more appealing to the “Average” person. Building your character is cookie cutter and there’s no real wrong way to do it. Questing is like riding on rails as everything you need is marked out for you when before the GW’s never told you diddly. Matter of fact the map wasn’t even exposed until you discovered that portion of the area and it didn’t help that some maps were like a maze.

Even with that this isn’t the type of game to turn people away from it. It’s just the type of game to attract and keep a certain type of player.

i’ll write this although i know that nobody will read it, what do you mean by challenging?
because as OP posted it seems that challenging means doable with better gear and different builds, that means doable only with that gear and that builds, this is not challenging, this is people thinking inside the box.

whenever you ask for challenging stuff you should also explain what kind of challenge do you want!
i’m not against challenge, but i’m against unblockable projectiles, skill that one shot you etc etc. that is not challenging that is people complaining about easy stuff to do.

and you know, for a change, i’m tired of things being difficoult at all cost because you are bored.
and i’m not saying this because i want easy reward (since anyway i’m not getting any good reward as it is), and i’m not a casual player.

and btw i’m also tired of people bashing casual players like they are trash incapable of achieve anything.

i hope for the love of all the gods that arena net stops to pay attention to everything written in this forum, because at any patch i see that they change things based on the forum complainers…

so you lover of challenge where are you know that some dungeon are made harder even in story mode? that some temples are undoable, where are you know that in pn/shelt is full of champions?

oh and don’t forget, that there is not only end gamers, but also people who are actually playing the game and i don’t think it’s fair that lv 30 player trying ac story mode get to fight troll that can wipe level 80 because you were bored and got nothing better to do that write here

cesmode.4257:

Challenging dungeons: The only one that is reasonably challenging, that people run, is Arah path 1, or whatever path it is. People naturally find the easiest and quickest to run. They do not bother with the other paths, so if the devs want to save some time and money, stop making multiple paths for explorables? Id say 90% of players skip the harder paths in explorables…a shame, but thats the way of the human beast.

Challenging jumping puzzles: Im a pretty avid gamer, I play a variety, etc. I think a lot of the JPs provide enough of a challenge. Some are way harder than most, some are pretty face roll, and then the majority are right in the middle where it actually takes a little effort. Even though I will be so kitten ed if I fall off that ledge and die/have to start over, I love the Jps in the game. I just wish the chests rewarded something other than blues/greens.

There are SOME challenging events. The temple events in Orr are failed by groups often enough IMO. They have made shelt/pent harder by replacing everything with vets and champs which sucks for farmers like myself…I kind of preferred it the old way. But yeah, by and large there aren’t many difficult events that do not throw 50 vets and champs at you. I’ll agree here. This also goes along with challenging and unique boss fights that do not have multiple ways to one shot you, and are not tank and spank.

I don’t quite agree with you. I have done all dungeons multiple times. People skip some harder parts due to the time/reward factor. Not that these players cannot do it. The facts are:
1. Players have to grind over 1380 tokens for a complete set of the stats and skins you want.

2. It involves a party of 5 and if two players have to log-off due to real-world reasons. We are normally forced to get pugs. Most often it’s luck. For harder and more time consuming dungeons. IT’s a pain to find team players, not auto attack spammers and not to mention rage quitters or snipers that just auto attack for 1200 points away.

3. Most of crafting professions are just not efficient and not worth while at all. Due to the fact the materials are better off spent else where. FYI. Master Maintenance Oil from the BLT costs 7-10 silver per consumable ! and if you are to craft it, it will cost you 33-35 silver ! The Piles to Crystalline Dust is so rare in drops and also shared across many other crafts, makes it even worst. The only profession I use for my own consumption is cooking ! Like the Omnomberry Cream/Pie not for the Magic Find but for the boon duration or life steal. Which I do not need to buy any of those over inflated materials from the trading post.

Maintenance oil consumable is a crafted item. Why is it the base material piles of crystalline dust alone is 5x more expensive? The supply in the TP seems to be endless. Someone rich much be constantly making a huge loss on the crafted master maintenance oil or is it Gw2 built in auto item generator to populate the TP ?

QueenHysteria.1084:

GW2 is a lot easier than GW1. That was one of my greatest dislikes about the sequel. The game really holds your hand and doesn’t punish you for failing. The Risk and Challenge are gone so you feel like you get rewarded for nothing. It has nothing to do with being casual though. GW1 was play when you wanted too but it was hard as nails. A lot of the thinking and strategy is gone from the game. ArenaNet really trimmed down on the challenge of the game to make it more appealing to the “Average” person. Building your character is cookie cutter and there’s no real wrong way to do it. Questing is like riding on rails as everything you need is marked out for you when before the GW’s never told you diddly. Matter of fact the map wasn’t even exposed until you discovered that portion of the area and it didn’t help that some maps were like a maze.

Even with that this isn’t the type of game to turn people away from it. It’s just the type of game to attract and keep a certain type of player.

I didn’t find most of Guild Wars 1 more challenging that most of Guild Wars 2. Even in hard mode, the open world was massively easy with heroes. Easier than Guild Wars 2. I didn’t even have to be there to win in Guild Wars 1. I can’t Akitten Guild Wars 2 if I forget to go to the mists, because I’ll probably be dead when I get back.

There is a different type of difficulty between the two games. In Guild Wars 1 very often you were successful or you failed by the time you left the outpost. In most content, you succeeded or failed based on team builds which were available in PvX wiki. You could run the sabway build and waltz through most content.

Guild Wars 2 has a different type of difficulty. It at least requires you to pay attention (where as Guild Wars 1 didn’t half the time). For some people, Guild Wars 2 is much harder than Guild Wars 1. You don’t depend on a healer here, so that means you’re responsible for your own health bar. There’s over all less damage mitigation. There’s nothing like an imbagon paragon (which was dead easy to play). An imbagon could prevent 90% of the damage to your entire party pretty much constantly.

There were hard elements here and there in Guild Wars 1, like the Underworld and Slaver’s Exile, but again, with the right builds, you could do that stuff quite easily. Rits solo farmed the underworld. Stuff like perma sins and 600 monks and ursans and sabway and discord builds made a joke of the game’s difficulty.

I find stuff like Lupi and higher level fractals to be harder than most content in Guild Wars 1. I find much of the open world content to be harder too. Not the meta events, but other group events on less traveled roads.

Amadan.9451:

i’ll write this although i know that nobody will read it, what do you mean by challenging?
because as OP posted it seems that challenging means doable with better gear and different builds, that means doable only with that gear and that builds, this is not challenging, this is people thinking inside the box.

whenever you ask for challenging stuff you should also explain what kind of challenge do you want!
i’m not against challenge, but i’m against unblockable projectiles, skill that one shot you etc etc. that is not challenging that is people complaining about easy stuff to do.

and you know, for a change, i’m tired of things being difficoult at all cost because you are bored.
and i’m not saying this because i want easy reward (since anyway i’m not getting any good reward as it is), and i’m not a casual player.

and btw i’m also tired of people bashing casual players like they are trash incapable of achieve anything.

i hope for the love of all the gods that arena net stops to pay attention to everything written in this forum, because at any patch i see that they change things based on the forum complainers…

so you lover of challenge where are you know that some dungeon are made harder even in story mode? that some temples are undoable, where are you know that in pn/shelt is full of champions?

oh and don’t forget, that there is not only end gamers, but also people who are actually playing the game and i don’t think it’s fair that lv 30 player trying ac story mode get to fight troll that can wipe level 80 because you were bored and got nothing better to do that write here

Why do you think no one would read this? I’ve read it and mostly I agree. Good job.

I for once would like to see more challenging world bosses and dungeons, but so far, it’s easy enough to earn rare items by doing boss events, so I don’t know what kind of reward should we get from harder dungeons.

one thing that this game needs:
get ready for (some) replys
gear tiers…
If you don’t have anything to shoot for in an MMO it gets boring after a while.

I feel like legendary tier is way too high with nothing in between.
There should be 1 or 2 more gear tiers, that we could obtain with hard obstacles and dedication. NOT ALL GEAR SHOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE…
Right now its turned into a game with 2 hours of update worth playtime per fortnight.
I am sad to see my fav game go down this shallow and uninteresting road of story telling.

dronzer.8392:

There is a different between challenging and grinding… this game is much more of the latter, but we grind to make our characters feel powerful… a progression trait that is absent in this game.

Crapgame.6519:

Could you imagine if Blizzard dropped in a jump puzzle such as the Mad Kings Tower?

I agree, infact the whole idea of a jump puzzles in an mmorpg… and especially in the Guild Wars franchise, given how non existed in the first game is mind boggling, It’s like someone putting in jump puzzles in a Call of Duty game……..

It’s pretty obvious actually. The #1 complaint in GW1 was lack of jumping. Of all things to complain about … so A.net put jumping in GW2, with a vengeance.

tigirius.9014:

As a filthy casual I have to laugh at these threads because nowhere in the post level 80 process is this game at all easy. Mobs keep getting updated to make them non soloable…..

Non soloable? This game is the most soloable game I know, I don’t mind. I prefer it many times. Even veterans are soloable. Its not bad, other games definetly needed a party (because you needed healer, tank, buffer) and waiting around doing nothing is no fun.

Some developers embed code into their games to monitor what players are doing. If the majority of players are doing choice ‘A’ then they cater upcoming content for more choices like ‘A’.

ArenaNet seem to be doing something like that. If a car dealership wants to make profit, it tends to order the car that it sells the most. In fact, most businesses operate by this concept.

The maxed-out hardcore crowd with will still finish 3 months of work in less than a day’s play and then wonder why it was too easy. It is economically impossible to keep up with those folks without losing the other 90 % because it is too hard.

beren.6048:

tigirius.9014:

As a filthy casual I have to laugh at these threads because nowhere in the post level 80 process is this game at all easy. Mobs keep getting updated to make them non soloable…..

Non soloable? This game is the most soloable game I know, I don’t mind. I prefer it many times. Even veterans are soloable. Its not bad, other games definetly needed a party (because you needed healer, tank, buffer) and waiting around doing nothing is no fun.

They are right now, just wait. In case you haven’t noticed everything that I’ve warned people about has come true so far. Right now we’re seeing them put the pieces together about the newest in nerfs of the T6 drops and globs. We’ll see a time when the orr mobs become so resistant to attacks and so updated that they’ll require a group as well just like dungeon mobs. Mark my words, it’s obvious that’s in the works.

Oh and I also have to point out that doing that is exactly like what happened in yet another mmo title that tried the same thing to make their open world content more “challenging” LOTRO post their Mirkwood expansion. Made their mobs to challenging that no one wanted to play anymore.

There’s a pattern here to be true. They are literally going down the list of all of the subtle changes tried by other mmo developers years ago in which those developers too found them to be harmful to their playerbase and made the game not fun. From someone who’s documented these changes in other games so that I’d recognize them in future titles, it’s amazing that someone on their development team doesn’t recognize these as “already tried, failed back then” as I do.

Torpian.9142:

Some developers embed code into their games to monitor what players are doing. If the majority of players are doing choice ‘A’ then they cater upcoming content for more choices like ‘A’.

In this case it seems more the “If too many players are enjoying ‘A’, then we should nerf this” approach.

The problem with challenging content is that it must be followed by increased rewards, the reason people stopped running AC isn’t because it got harder, it’s because the rewards weren’t increased to compensate for it. Why is Grenth always contested on most servers, while there is a huge mob waiting at the Frozen Maw? Because they offer the exact same rewards but one is harder than the other.

Before they even think of adding “even more challenging content”, they first need to have appropriate rewards for doing the already existing content, killing a boss while akitten shouldn’t have the same rewards as doing content that requires coordiantion/cooperation. Sadly, in this game rewards are so messed up that it doesn’t make any sense.

maddoctor.2738:

The problem with challenging content is that it must be followed by increased rewards, the reason people stopped running AC isn’t because it got harder, it’s because the rewards weren’t increased to compensate for it. Why is Grenth always contested on most servers, while there is a huge mob waiting at the Frozen Maw? Because they offer the exact same rewards but one is harder than the other.

Before they even think of adding “even more challenging content”, they first need to have appropriate rewards for doing the already existing content, killing a boss while akitten shouldn’t have the same rewards as doing content that requires coordiantion/cooperation. Sadly, in this game rewards are so messed up that it doesn’t make any sense.

Agreed. Why play professional football if my local league pays the same. Why be a doctor when a Janitor pays the same. Why would anyone work harder for the same reward. I doubt this current system will change, communistic thinking is very prevalent in this game. Ruins competition, thus stale gameplay.

sorry to break it too you, it’s been a long time since i have played or even heard of a difficult game in any market.